It's like a side thing, kind of like Painted World. You can do new content after you place the Lordvessel. I still have the last boss to beat and the optional boss to beat, but man is the DLC very good. The content is about 10 hours long, but I am at about 15 hours or more on it since the stuff is very challenging ( I still skipped a lot of items) It like adds so much to the lore and answers more about the Dark Souls story. The whole mystery aspect that is ever present with the world of Dark Souls opens up more questions in this DLC; in a good way. I am left wanting to see more of this world.

From Software claims they are not doing another Souls game next. However, supposedly there is a hint to the next Souls game buried somewhere. I would hope the next game, if they do one, is a direct sequel because there is a lot here I still want to explore. Maybe more DLC is the route?

The the content has a ton of stuff in it, and stuff that has not be discovered since the game just came out. Hell, if you do the content before a certain boss and find a specific secret, it changes a cutscene in the main game: not in a way that just adds different colored fireworks . Who knows what other stuff like this is present.

On top of that you have Arena style PVP matchmaking with leaderboards. You can view the top players' equipment and builds too via the leaderboards. Nifty!

My impression on the bosses? They are amazing, and hard as hell. I would argue they are much harder than anything in the main game.

So for other things about the game. This is actually Patch 1.06. So there are some gameplay changes.

Like they nerfed the Ninja Flip ring (Dark Wood Grain Ring). Before you it lowered weight requirements by like 50% so you can get fast role at 50% weight and flip around. Now you have to be 25%, which means some build will have to go well over 40 endurance. I was so shocked when I got the ring that I thought the game was glitched.

Bunch of items nerfed in damage and even Greatsword swing speed is slower.

Backstabs do less damage.

Overall it feels like the game is slightly harder. Like they tweaked the AI or something. Like they seem to mix up their attacks a lot more and not have as much path issues that you can exploit. This was very noticeable on Ornstein and Smough for me. I just could not beat these dudes. It took longer than my first playthrough on PS3. It was just something different about their attack mix-up and I could not cheese them with the pillars as much. I mean I have one shotted these dude so many times, even as early as two weeks ago when I did a new playthough on PS3 in preparation of PC release. I even spent 2 hours wiping on Gargoyles. I dunno something with the AI just feels different.

Other things. Backstabs seem more responsive. Like no more of that you are behind an enemy yet it swings for some reason because you were a pixel off.

My favorite gamplay change though, is they added more warp points. Basically, every major area has a warp point now like the Undead Perish by the Blacksmith; even the Painted World (cannot warp out still though). Very good quality of life change here.

About performance, the elephant in the room. The game is locked at 30 frame per second. Any attempts to raise the frame rate to 60 causes the game to speed up twice as fast. The good news is areas like Blighttown do not drop in frames if you have a good computer. Smooth Blighttown is all I wanted, and I got it.

To get those better looking textures in my pictures requires a simple mod that allows you to increase the Internal Rendering Resolution. Shows off the great work the artist put into those texture but were hidden behind the blurry lower resolution of the console version. Yup the HD textures were always there, just rendered in a lower resolution so performance could be stable. But yeah, there are details in the enemies I never thought were there before. It's amazing to see in motion.

Even without the texture mod, it seems the draw distance is a lot greater on PC though.

Lastly, I have run into a couple hackers. One of them was clearly bot and in area of the game you cannot access, like on a rooftop you cannot jump onto on. So have to be careful when invading or being invaded. However, most of the people are total noobs. Like seriously, playing PS3 was hardcore. If you got invaded or invaded someone there was a good chance you will be destroyed. Here 90% of the people are new it seems. Which is good, in my opinion, it makes the game feel fresh. Since people are using messages and co-oping, it felt like Day 1 all over again back when the PS3 version was released.

Overall the game is worth it with the new content and better performance. This is the best version of the game. Also, you can find the game under $30 with discount promos on Green Man Gaming. I heard a few direct2drive places had it for $21.

SOunds pretty cool, no level 10 tweeked the fuck out dooods invading your shit and killing you in the first stage. Kinda Upset my PS3 broke before I could beat this game. I was at the last boss too and he was beating the shit out of me. :(

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"Brotherhood asked for no friendship, only loyalty. They stood back to back as the galaxy burned - always brothers, never friends; traitors together unto the last."

You can match make with your friends somehow. Not sure on all the details but it puts you in a lobby waiting area and when you want to join a match you stand on a trap door. Basically if you want to play with a friend you have them stand on the trap door across from you. There are two arena stages. You can do 1v1, 2v2 and 4 player free-for-all. Really good feature. Since a lot of what keeps this game going is the PVP. Finally, brackets and leaderboards are split by level ranges.

So I totally loved Demon's Souls and was super excited for the spiritual successor Dark Souls. However, I think the gods are some how intervening to make sure I never beat this game or that I perpetually play it, fruitlessly trying to beat it.

So as some of you may or may not know I'm in the military. When Dark Souls was first released I was in Florida for some training. I had pre-purchased the special edition off of amazon months ago. However it was to be delivered to my home on record at New Jersey. So unless you have a permanent place of residence off base, it's usually a hassle getting mail in the military. I eventually received my copy about a month later. I was thoroughly enthralled with the game, I would have to put it down for extended periods of time due to field ops training and a lot of moving around. Somehow during my last move my PS3 was damaged and was no longer able to do anything.

I send it in to sony to get it repaired and also lose all saved data on my harddrive. Oh well, I say to myself I'm pretty familiar with what I'm doing in that game. Shouldn't be too hard to get to where I last left off. Finally today I was just about 2 bosses shy from where I left off previously and lo and behold we randomly lose all power on base. When the power finally comes back on I find out that my saved file is corrupted and needs to be deleted.

WHAT!?WHY!? I say to myself. I was totally mad bro. Now I'm just feeling vexxed. In a couple of weeks I'll be heading to Japan and totally won't be able to beat the game by that time. Guess I'll just have to wait till I get to Japan before I can beat it.

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"Brotherhood asked for no friendship, only loyalty. They stood back to back as the galaxy burned - always brothers, never friends; traitors together unto the last."

Not that I disagree with your choice, because XBL's gold pricing is quickly losing its value, but XBL does have cloud saves too, and you get 512 MB of storage compared to the 150 MB you get on PS3.

Really though, MS really needs to step up their game on XBL Gold. With the free games, launch-day discount prices, and day-1 digital releases for retail games, PSN+ is really outshining XBL Gold.

MS keeps adding shitty features like facebook, twitter, bing... then scaling them back and taking them away. They're adding a bit more value in the discounts lately, but its buried under tons of advertising so its hard to even find new releases or shit that's on sale. The best thing MS ever did on XBL was 1 vs 100, a truly innovative use of XBL's platform delivering live and compelling content... and of course they axed it and never followed up or built on the idea.

I still feel that the xbox matchmaking, friends list, messaging, and party system are superior to PSN's, but with how burdened the rest of the Xbox experience is becoming on the dashboard next gen is going to be make or break for XBL compared to PSN.

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Steam: MrCrushin PSN : MrCrushin XBL: Mr CrushinI'm not a playa I just crush a lot.

Yea I don't understand that shit, I know microsoft is making mad money with all those fucking ads, so why the fuck do they keep jewing me with the fucking Xbox gold membership. Honestly I feel like PS+ is way worth more then Gold for the simple fact that you actually get free shit. Although dumb shit, its still better then no shit, imho:)

Plus last time I logged in shit just felt cumbersome and unintuitive. Plus Xbox headsets always suck.

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"Brotherhood asked for no friendship, only loyalty. They stood back to back as the galaxy burned - always brothers, never friends; traitors together unto the last."

You didn't have to google much, this thread has a pretty good amount of info, but I don't blame you if you don't like it. It's pretty narrow in the market audience this game is targeting. You either like it or you don't. This game pisses me off as much as I love it.

But yeah, 1 boss away from the last boss and 4 trophies away from platinum, so close!

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"Brotherhood asked for no friendship, only loyalty. They stood back to back as the galaxy burned - always brothers, never friends; traitors together unto the last."